Every 14 Days....(34)

Frozen Dreams (Tatematsu Wahei)

Tatematsu Wahei (wahey!)’s ‘Frozen Dreams’ was a book that I had spied in the old second-hand bookshop in Balham – you know, the one that’s now an estate agents. I didn’t buy it, because I’m your classic rubbernecker. Though recently at Camden Lock Books at Old Street Station, numerous copies were available on the cheap. I only bought one.

Noboru is the responsible student leading an expedition into the Hokkaido mountains in Northern Japan. Choosing the winter months as it would be quieter, though obviously a lot more dangerous, the group set-off, with the peak Poroshiri their goal, before they all head into the dreaded world of full-time employment.

To start, this feels like the sort of book you’d find in Robin Ince’s ‘Bad Book Club’, with a cover that seems a bit simple and naff, with the tagline ‘based on a true story.’ And to start, it does feel a bit like that. Slightly strange, and perhaps unnecessary, descriptions are included, alongside lusty images in the mind of key protagonist Noboru for the marriageable Yuko. Perhaps the translation isn’t that strong, strange considering it is by Haruki Murakami translator Philip Gabriel, but there’s something about the way it is written that just doesn’t work.

But give it time, and as the journey progresses, the book starts to come alive a little, happily as most of the characters die. Trapped under an avalanche, Noboru awakes to realise he is the sole surviving member of the party, but restricted by his predicament, he cannot move under the snow, and so drifts in and out of consciousness. And this is where the main crux of the story comes into play.  

As he drifts in and out, he lapses into a dream world where his future is played out for him. The story of his first job, apartment and marriage to the now-lying-dead-beside-him Yuko are told and their endless days spent climbing mountains together. It is the life the soon-to-be-graduate wants, but will now never have.

For this reason, ‘Frozen Dreams’ becomes something of an interesting story, with some nice ideas. Being that it is a fictional account of a fictional future, it is difficult to suggest exactly have much is based on a true story, but takes it away from feeling like a cheap and easy throw-away novel for holidaying. But the first half is a little weak and takes some credibility away from the book in the reader’s mind and, like Noboru, you wonder if it was a journey worth taking.

Days to read: 10

Days per book: 14.9

The Analects (Confucius)

'I'm not confused.'

- Alan Partridge

The works of Confucius are the sort of thing that you feel you should read as people refer to them here and there and you want to add your name to the guest list of this intellectual party.

Now, I’ve read such things as ‘The Art of War’ and ‘Hagakure’, so I’m accustomed to the style of these ancient teachings, much like members of the Wu-Tang Clan or Bone Thugs-n-Harmony are. These are short nuggets of wisdom to ponder, re-read and think ‘what the Hell is that supposed to mean?!’

The Penguin (quack quack) edition that I read has extensive background setting from D.C. Lau, which probably serves as a more useful read, giving the teachings some context and further explanation for the lay milkman, providing approximate timelines of the life of Confucius and those around him.

There is a lot of repetition within the actual twenty books of ‘The Analects’ itself; coupled with Lau’s text you feel like you are reading the same pieces over and over. Also, outside of the actual context, many points seem to lack application.

Nonetheless, you will learn a good few things about how you should live your life: benevolence, basically. And how to impress people at parties you’re not invited to, sat alone in your bedroom, night after night.

Days to read: 21

Days per book: 14.9

The Book of Fathers (Miklós Vámos)

This is a book bought for me for a number of reasons - that number being two. For one, this is a Hungarian book and it was bought for me by my Hungarian wife as a birthday present. For two, this, as the title suggests, is a book about fathers, and the day before my birthday, I became a father for the first time, and thus will not get any birthday presents ever again.

This is one of those books that can be considered an epic: it's got more than like two hundred pages, or something. It charts the rise and fall of ten or so (I can't remember) generations of eldest sons, starting off around 1700, covering three hundred years of Hungarian history up to the new millennium. Naturally, not just a story of family lineage, this is a Hungarian history lesson, the many changes to the face a nation with ever-moving borders documented as times move on.

A time piece is found by the first of the eldest sons and is subsequently handed down to the next generation. Luckily, all have a son as their first born. Alongside this, a journal is kept - the titular Book of Fathers - which each son in turn adds to before passing it on. These two heirlooms combined mean that each father/son/Hungarian has the ability to see into the past or the future, using history to their advantage, or foretelling their demise. Each is gifted, yet flawed, changing their name, religion and even nationality, only to return back whence they came.

The family move across different parts of Hungary's geography, though starting Germany, moving to Debrecen, Eger, Pecs and Budapest, migrating around Europe and America along the way. Culture and the arts are developed, religion is persecuted and wars are fought as history dictates. But with a book as ambitious as this, it can often be difficult to get the ideas fully articulated.

With many characters to cover, they can't all be fully developed, with variation in the level of interest in each. Some pack a long journey into a short life, while others burn out slowly and quietly. Following the nation's history as well, much like some of the characters, you can see what's coming and so certain chapters in the Book of Fathers are building to the inevitable. The style of writing seems to develop as time passes, which could be to show the development of language over time, or laziness in the writing/translation.

As with any family, this is a bit of a mixed bag, but I like ambitious ideas, and while it may be a bit of a skim to fit three hundred years into one novel, the changing of the guard means that you don't get too bored with any one character. As we approach the new millennium and the book's conclusion, it feels appropriate in the current climate, with migration shown as something that has always happened, yet proving that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Days to read: 30

Days per book: 15.0

Content Provider (Stewart Lee)

As I don't read newspapers (they're essentially all scum that I wouldn't wipe my arse with, unless really desperate after Villa beat Sunderland away and the Sports Cafe in Newcastle doesn't have any bog roll, and someone had left one open on a page that just so happened to feature an article about West Brom), I don't get to read all these Sunday supplement articles by the comedians whose newsletters I otherwise regularly subscribe to.

So, following on from the likes of Brooker, Mitchell, Iannucci, et al, comes Lee. Largely formed by some of his Observer articles in the absence of David Mitchell - holidaying with his wife, and Charlie Brooker and his wife - there are also some other works for other publications, some not used.

Lee likes to mess around with his audiences, and many of these are subversive works, written in the guise of 'The Character Stewart Lee'. Much like his stand-up, there are lots of allegories to make political points, always tinged with the juvenile. You, therefore, aren't always quite sure how to receive each, some feeling genius, others just strange ramblings of a man that should get out more.

But ever the mischief, Lee wants you to feel that way. The majority of articles come with short introductions from 'the real' Stew Art Wee and are followed by some comments left on the publication websites in response to the works, the majority of which are negative, picking out the often deliberate mistakes, set as traps to lure the armchair pundit into moral outrage.

'Content Provider' confirms Lee as an enigma, intent on dividing opinion, as all good comedians should. Reading consecutively, this can get a bit grating, like cheese, and so should maybe should be consumed an article at a time, whenever you have five to ten minutes to sit down and put one away, you know, like a - don't say it - toilet book.

Days to read: 15

Days per book: 15.0

Every 14 Days...(13)

The Sound of Waves (Mishima Yukio)

Stumbling about a book shop looking for something to read, I came across the name Mishima Yukio and randomly decided to take a punt on a randomly chosen book of his. ‘The Sound of Waves’ is what I came away with: a tale of first love – probably not the best one to have chosen really.

Humble boy fisherman Shinji starts getting boners over the mysterious Hatsue, the returning daughter of the wealthiest man on the small island of Utajima (‘Song Island’). Eventually meeting her and speaking to her, it’s not long before they are stood naked before each other. But, being that they are young, unmarried and she is the pick of the birds, it’s not long before rumour and gossip spread rife through the community, shaming both their names.

There’s no doubt that Mishima is a good writer, with a nice, flowing style that reads easily, but I’m not really sure what the point of this book is – if it’s that true love shines through, then that’s just a bit shit and gay really. But I’m sure it’s something much more along the lines of the nature of gossip and scandal in a community that revolves around traditional values. ‘The Sound of Waves’ is perhaps not his best work, with ‘The Sea of Fertility’ his most celebrated work, but marks the discovery of a new writer that will undoubtedly make an appearance in the future, despite having committed seppuku forty-two years ago.

Days to read: 15

Days per book: 14.3

You are Nothing (Robert Wringham)

‘If you’ve only ever read one book in your life…I strongly recommend that you keep your mouth shut.’

- Simon Munnery

It’s quite often that a lot of the furore and protest over controversial comedies – such as the will-become-appropriate-later ‘Jerry Springer the Opera’ – is conducted by people that have not actually seen what they are protesting about. What they are saying, therefore, has to be taken with a pinch of salt and filed under ‘words of a bored nutter’. But, what if it’s the other way round, and someone shamelessly praises something that they have never seen?

Enter Robert Wringham and his book ‘You are Nothing’, an account of the Cluub Zarathustra comedy night from 1990s London which featured a heavyweight line-up of Simon Munnery, Stewart Lee (Stew Art Wee), Kevin Eldon, Sally Philips, Richard Thomas, Harry Hill, Roger Mann, Al Murray, Johnny Vegas, Graham Linehan, Peter Baynham, Richard Herring, Julian Barratt, among others. Beyond having seen the unaired Channel 4 pilot on YouTube and that much of Simon Munnery’s material was later used in ‘Attention Scum’ on BBC2, I know little of Cluub Zarathustra. But, with the list of names performing early work that would go on to become huge stars of British comedy and Richard Herring, it’s believable that I would have loved the experimental showcase if I had seen it.

And this is Robert Wringham’s approach: write a book about something you’ve never seen, but assume you would have enjoyed if you had seen it, and try to make the most of sketchy twenty year-old memories of people who were probably drugged-up and/or drunk at the time. Speaking on ‘Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast’ (RHLSTP!), Stewart Lee jokes about the possible validity of the idea, much has he would have questioned the argument of the 50,000 or so Christians who took him to court over ‘Jerry Springer the Opera’. And when reading the book, it’s hard not to have a sense of this is a man writing close to 200 pages in rather a subjective manner about something he never saw.

Though having said that, it is good that an account is being made at a time when all of the performers are still in a position to still have some memory of it, no matter how vague. Given the endless list of television shows, stand-up performances and even films that the bit-part line-up went on to produce, it can only be agreed that Cluub Zarathustra certainly has an important part to play in British comedy history and is worthy of a documented account – even though it is a Go Faster Stripe Book and will probably only be read by a couple of hundred people at most!

A couple of years ago, I posted a comment on the Cluub Zarathustra pilot episode on YouTube. This led to a response from a man identified only as ‘Rob’ to message me asking if I’d ever seen Cluub Zarathustra live. One can only hope that Mr Wringham wasn’t that desperate in his research and that anyone writing any book ever should use every other tool available to them before asking me for my account.

Days to read: 11

Days per book: 14.2

The Motorcycle Diaries (Ernesto Che Guevara)

Watch the film, read the book, feel intellectually superior to you now that I have read the book and you haven’t.

Gap years are great, aren’t they? Gain work experience, go travelling, become an important politic icon of the Twentieth Century. So the film would have you believe, anyway. This is, as stated, more of a travel log of two friends travelling across South America, one of which went on to become a famous Marxist revolutionary. The film plays on events having great significance in shaping Guevara’s change in political ideology along the journey, but that is not the case. While the travels will have undoubtedly had an impact on his future self, he did, of course, go back to University after the travels to finish his course.

Mainly, it is an account of naivety, blagging and having to sleep rough. It should probably have been called ‘The Unicycle Diaries’, as La Poderosa  gave up on them quite early on and much of the journey was spent hitching, flying in the air or sailing by boat. It was probably this fact: travelling on foot, hitching lifts and getting in with locals rather than speeding past on a bike that would have led to a greater impact on Guevara, making the title seem a little ironic in hindsight.

The man he became would happen later: here he is like any other male student, unsure where he is going, in search of adventure and having a laugh. Now for me to write my book: ‘Travelled Round Japan, then I Became a Member of the Green Party’…or something.

Days to read: 10

Days per book: 14.1

Every 14 Days...(8)

The If You Prefer A Milder Comedian, Please Ask For One EP (Stewart Lee)

After his last book, ‘How I Escaped My Certain Fate’, in which he annotates transcriptions of his three stand-up DVDs to date, Stewart Lee follows up his ‘LP’ with an ‘EP’ of his most recent live DVD along similar lines.

It’s an interesting approach to the autobiography, adding stories behind the routines to document the real-life events that inspired the falsified anecdotes.

To read, it is horrible; constantly switching between footnotes and the main body, confusing as to which page you are actually meant to be on. But for the diehard comedy purist, it’s an insightful work to inspire another viewing of the DVD. However, what’s most interesting about this book is that it was first published in 2012, yet I bought it off the man himself in December 2011.

Days to read: 4

Days per book: 15.7

Bye Bye Balham (Richard Herring)

Essentially, this book is pointless.  The numerous unsold copies that haunt the writer’s basement –hindering both players’ shooting angles in his Me1 vs. Me2 snooker podcasts – are testament to this. Any pathetic human, such as me, can log-on to www.richardherring.co.uk and click on ‘Warming Up’ and read the blog that he has kept every day since 25^th November, 2002. Coincidentally, the same date that I started this little reading adventure (well, actually 26^th November).

‘Bye Bye Balham’ is the first six months of the blog in published book form, looking back at the words he wrote from 2008, adding information here and there. But, being that there is no porn on his website (sex porn, anyway), I have little to no interest in spending too long on his website (or any website for that matter) and so would much rather read the words on page than on screen.

Perhaps, though, the only reason he decided to publish this as a book in 2008 is that he knew that in January 2012, I would be spending a lot of time journeying up and down the Northern Line to and from Balham appreciating the irony each time.

Days to read: 16

Days per book: 15.7

TV Go Home: TV Listings the Way they should be (Charlie Brooker)

Completing the trilogy of comedians that wrote the pile of books I have to get through (can anyone guess what I got for Christmas?!), Charlie Brooker’s TV listings mockery was next on my chortle-sphere.

I’ve got more and more into Mr Konni Huq’s BBC Four shows over the last couple of years, and having enjoyed much of his screenplay writing, I thought it best I read some of his paper book writes as well. ‘TV Go Home’ is essentially the RadioTimes written by a man angry at how shit most television is, with falsely created TV shows to put an ironic spin on how most of television works, as well as hit-out at Shoreditch-based media types.

My balls did hurt in parts with laughing at some of the sheer outrageous and absurd ideas he concocts, though many programme premises are – this is a man who had the idea of the Prime Minister fucking a pig made into a commissioned programme. But as an overall read, it’s not one to sit down for long sessions with – having been based on a magazine – and thus, I hang my head in shame, Stewart Lee, it makes a great toilet book.

Days to read: 10

Days per book: 15.5

The Perfect Fool (Stewart Lee)

Wow! Those books I got for Christmas written by TV funny men (Richard Herring just wants to be on telly!) just keep coming!

A novel, I hear you cry. Indeed yes, a novel based on the Native American concept of the ‘perfect fool’: where a member of society plays the role of the fool in order to work as an example to others. Here numerous ‘fools’ each live out their equally ridiculous lives (in Balham and other such places) with seemingly no conclusion in sight, before they all meet in the deserts of Arizona.

This is stand-up Stewart Lee’s sole novel to date and starts as quite a struggle of a read. While outshining the works of say, Chris Moyles, the initial chapters feel rather conceited as Lee tries to use too grandiose a writing style to distinguish his work as literature among the throngs of pulp fiction. However, sticking with it, this soon becomes less of a problem as the story develops.

The various characters require some leaps of faith in the reader to make them believable and some of their actions towards the end seem a little out-of-place. But much like his comedy, this does raise some interesting points, whether you think it’s good or bad and raises Lee above some of the more foolish titles on the shelves…such as the works of Kipling. You are shit Rudyard!

Days to read: 9

Days per book: 15.3

Screen Burn (Charlie Brooker)

Part two of making my way through the books of Charlie Brooker is ‘Screen Burn’: a collection of works from his column of the same name the ‘The Guide’ in The Guardian. Now, the problem with reading this is that you have to cast your mind back to the years 2000-2004 and much of the television that was broadcast over this period. This is, however, the time when I was at University and staying in of a night to while away in front of the ol’ radiation king was not top of my list of priorities.

While much of the book is undeniably funny, with various social comments and guffaw-inducing remarks about popular culture, a lot of time is spent wracking the brain as to whether or not you can remember, or have even heard of, the various shows to which he is referring. Though, while some quick references may pass you by, the entertainment value is higher than most books as you read the pages of a man condemning the very thing he loves.

At 360 pages, this can become a little tired – with each article only around two pages long – and repetitive; never really able to get into the book in a long session, making it not really one for a long journey. But it was never intended to be anything more, as the writer himself describes ‘one easy-to-read-on-the-toilet package’. Are all his books toilet books?!

Days to read: 16

Days per book: 15.3

School of Herring

I am often found sat in my high-backed armchair, with my semi-circular toilet mat, ready to catch any resulting man-mess that may result from watching a Richard Herring DVD or listening to one of his many podcasts. Not quite at the Andy McH standings, but I often frequent his shows, follow his daily life on his blog and generally filling a minted cumpkin over everything he does.

I remember watching ‘Fist of Fun’ in the mid-Nineties, though probably remember Kevin Eldon’s Simon Quinlank character and the girl in boxing gloves on the title sequence more than anything its two stars did. But with the second coming of Stewart Lee in recent years, the names Lee and Herring popped back into my consciousness.

Numerous DVDs have since been purchased and shows attended, but with the sheer amount of work that he puts in, it has been Richard Herring that I have been to see do his stand-up routines, more so than his smug, on telly partner.

For the last couple of years I have now found myself having spurts of repeatedly seeing Son of Keith over a two-month period. This time last year, I went to three of his ‘Richard Herring’s Objective’ recording, as well as an AIOTM (AIOTM) recording and his live show ‘Christ on a Bike’, all while reading his latest book: ‘How Not to Grow Up’.

Earlier this year, saw all six (count them) AIOTM (AIOTM) recordings attended; and now once again, I find myself attending 75% of his ‘Richard Herring’s Objective’ recordings, alongside seeing him at the Lyric in Hammersmith with old pal Mr Stew Art Wee, and his new tour ‘What is Love, Anyway?’ And why not read a second hand copy of his beautifully-titled first book, ‘Talking Cock’, while I’m at it?!

The thing that makes Richard Keith different from other comedians is the public nature of his life. With his daily blog, ‘Warming Up’ and regular (or sometimes irregular) podcasts with Andrew Collings (sic.), pretty much everything that goes on throughout his days is captured on some medium. The endless DVD extras he provides are testament to this.

Seeing him live feels like seeing an old friend you have been following on Facebook rather than a famous stand-up. His cast of regular audience members always down in the front, there for support.

Maybe this is at the detriment to his wider career, with his calls to ‘just wanting to be on the telly’ thwarted by a small, but obsessively loyal fan base. His act though, while at times being a little unfriendly for a mainstream audience, is always good, if a little rough around the edges, like TV’s Emma Kennedy’s clackerlackadackdack. His second series of ‘Richard Herring’s Objective’ feels like a good progression from the first, which was more a watering down of his ‘Hitler Moustache’ routine, and his storytelling is reaching its peak.

So, enter the months of October, and later November, and it all starts again, and with the aforementioned shows attended recently this means that I have seen him perform the Ferrero Roche routine around five or six times these last few weeks, two in one day, and it keeps getting better. Oh yes, the ‘Motorcycling Clothes Shop’ sketch has nothing on this! I also now have shit loads (count them…well, two) signed copies of the ‘What is Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurve, Anyway?’ programme. I now also have a signed copy of a ‘Complete Cumpkin’; literally hours of fun.

With the first series of ‘Fist of Fun’ due out on DVD in December, I doubt there will be any waning of my Herring obsession anytime soon. I’m sure he will be in my dreams all Christmas…in a high-backed armchair…with a semi-circular mat you put around the toilet…